


blood on our doorstep

by lilabut



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Drabble, F/M, Gen, set roughly in season 6b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5496512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilabut/pseuds/lilabut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carol finds out about Daryl's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. blood on our doorstep

Silence engulfs them. A suffocating glove. (no engine roars. no boots shuffle on the pristine porch steps.)

 

Black leather is balled up tightly in Rick's fist. An angel's wings beam in the raw sunlight – long gone the days when they were innocent and white.

 

Never have they been this red. An angel fallen, risen again as a demon with crimson feathers. They still weep blood, drop by drop leaving a slow and final trail on the asphalt.

 

She struggles to stand, her spine (tinted in grotesque black and blue) crumbling from the effort.

 

Her defeated sigh ends the quiet. _No._


	2. life is nothing but ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set roughly fifteen to twenty years in the future.

_Who's Daryl?_ Carol feels her fingers freeze, curled tightly around the blood-coated handle of the knife she'd been cleaning. _I heard Carl and Michonne talk about him earlier_ , Judith continues, the afternoon sun illuminating her. _Never heard of him before._

 

_Why didn't you ask them?_ Carol asks, slowly setting the knife and dirty cloth down on the porch steps they are sitting on. Around her heart, she feels old chains tightening. She has almost forgotten they are there, so accustomed to the pain of them slicing into her heart that they have faded from her consciousness.

 

Judith swallows, eyes flickering between Carol and the disassembled gun in her lap. _They looked... sad. But..._ Her forehead wrinkles in confusion, aging her. _You look sad, too._

 

Carol's sigh breaks the quiet serenity of the afternoon. _He was with our group. Since Atlanta, back when it all started._ Judith nods, understanding just enough of her explanation to follow. So few of them are still alive... _He died a few weeks after we got here_ , Carol states plainly, nodding her head towards the streets of Alexandria before them (white porches, green grass, loaded trees, a child's laughter somewhere in the near distance).

 

_Walkers?_ Judith asks, seemingly unfazed by the tale. Growing up in this world, she is more resilient to death and loss than any of them. To Judith, you are alive or you are not. Haunting memories, the pain of loss – it does not matter much.

 

Carol shakes her head. _No, walkers didn't kill Daryl. They never could have._ She falls into silence, tracing her lifeline with a finger, smudging a drop of blood that is not her own. _People did._

 

It settles the matter, and Carol watches solemnly as Judith returns to assembling the cleaned gun, long hair fluttering in the breeze. In this moment, she looks so much like her mother that Carol feels as though she is looking into a memory, feeling younger, the ache in her bones forgotten, a dead's woman's laughter filling the air with hope. Preserved forever as she once had been.

 

Just like Daryl. His hair too long and shaggy, hiding his eyes, hiding the hints of a smile he so rarely granted. Sometimes, in her dreams, Carol can see him, white wings unfolding from his back. There is a rainbow above his head, spanning the sky, and in the distance, she hears a little girl's laughter.

 

He never speaks.

 

 

She has forgotten the sound of his voice.

 

 

 

_Why do you never talk about him?_ Judith's hesitant question pulls Carol out of her trance.

 

Because it hurts too much, is what she wants to say. _Because when Daryl died, it was different_ , is what she answers instead, looking down at her weathered hands. _We didn't think he would._

 

How foolish they had been, to hold on to that naive thought after the bloodshed they had suffered. To hold on to hope. _I'm sorry_ , Judith responds quietly, the air between them suddenly too warm, too thick. Holstering the gun, she rises to her feet, offering Carol a sympathetic smile before making her way towards the street.

 

_Judith?_ She stops halfway down the porch, turning back around. For a moment, Carol tries to remember how the little girl had once looked, tiny and flailing in her arms, and when she uncovers the memory, the smile that spreads her lips is genuine. _Did you ever wonder why they call you Asskicker?_

 

_Not really, they just always have._

 

_Daryl named you that. The day you were born._

 

 

In Judith's smile, Carol only sees Lori.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been _forever_ since I wrote a proper 100-word drabble. This was harder than I thought.
> 
> Let's hope this stays AU.


End file.
